


Winter's Child

by froeken_frost



Series: Ill-fated [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Character Background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 01:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5187194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froeken_frost/pseuds/froeken_frost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”<br/>― Mahatma Gandhi</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Child

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware of the fact that everybody has a different headcanon about Keeper Deshanna's personality and/or degree of relationship with an Inquisitor Lavellan.  
> In my little world however, Deshanna is my Inquisitor's mother and she is not the nicest person to have ever walked the realms of Thedas. Please do not read if you can't deal with this.

The day Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan followed her predecessor as Keeper of Clan Lavellan, she was determined to fulfill her duty as such. After her father’s and brother’s death she was the only mage the clan had left and she saw it as her duty to raise the next generation of mages. For a clan’s best foundation to survive was a strong, well-educated mage who would serve as Keeper; a driven successor of hers, gifted with firm magical talent and a quick mind, devoted to the people.

She would ensure her children to be the brightest and the best her people would have ever encountered.

 

Aware of the strong magic within her own blood, she kept watching for a suitable elf to bond with, not a mage himself, for their rules forbid more than three mages in one clan, but a man with magic running strongly within his bloodlines, so she could be certain her children would be gifted, too.

And she found him, the next meeting of the Dalish clans; Vamaël, a fierce hunter, quick with his bow and soft, brown eyes that lingered for seconds too long upon her. Both his older siblings gifted with the much desired magic. Deshanna didn’t waste time and they were bonded shortly after.

 

Within a year she realized her pregnancy to her entire satisfaction and started almost immediately with her preparations:

She offered sacrifices to the old gods as her predecessor had told her.

She prayed to Andruil to bless the child with a keen eye.

She prayed to Sylaise to keep it from disease and harm.

She prayed to Mythal to gift it with a just and kind mind.

And she prayed the Dread Wolf would never catch the scent of the unborn child she bore.

She spoke her prayers each day until the child was born.

 

It was her bonded who first held their child within his arms.

“A girl.” His voice pitched high with joy. “We have a beautiful daughter, my love!”

But the second she lay eyes upon the child, she knew the gods had forsaken her and her prayers.

Slender and scraggy, way too small for a newborn child. Its skin with an unhealthy pale colour, freckles all over its fragile body, no scream coming from its lips.

Deshanna didn’t think the child would even last a week.

She refused to take care of it first, for it would have been a waste of time and energy. But Vamaël wasn’t strong enough to see reason. He had fallen for the small creature the second it had first smiled at him. So she let him do as he liked, counting on the child not to survive long anyway. Him, however, she still needed, since she was not ready to give up her eager plans so soon.

Vamaël named the child after its unusual colour of skin Rhachalle, _winter’s child_ , and took care of it.

But the child yet survived, even though small in frame and slowly in growth, and to Deshanna’s deepest embarrassment physically still weak, oh so weak!

 

Until one night, years later she awake in the middle of the night from a radiant warmth, tenderly circling among her stomach. The child kneeling next to her, its hands pressed flat against her nightgown. Hands which were glowing with heat and humming with magic.

“What are you doing, child?” She managed to ask under her breath, while trying to push the child’s hands away before it could burn her.

But the child calmly raised its gaze towards her face, light brown eyes so familiar to its father’s filled with honest concern, yet not moving her hands.

“It was too cold for my little sister. She would have died without my help.”

 

From this moment on, Deshanna knew two things: First, she was pregnant again. Second, she would not have use of this second child, for her oldest daughter had finally proven herself worthy.

From this moment on, Rhachalle’s education would begin.


End file.
